The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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Healthcare nonprofits spend millions in federal funds, operate in secrecy
In a two-part series, Clark Kauffman of The Des Moines Register examined the Iowa Foundation for Medical Care, the largest of 53 federally funded Quality Improvement Organizations. The newspaper found that the tax-exempt Iowa foundation, which investigates complaints of poor patient care received by Iowa’s 500,000 Medicare beneficiaries, reviewed only 12 complaints in 2005. That…
Read MoreDrug abuse, crime on rise among paramedics
A special report by Andrew McIntosh of The Sacramento Bee reveals problems with paramedics and EMTs in the state of California. Substance abuse is on the rise among paramedics, including theft of morphine on hand to treat patients in the field. Additionally, lax oversight of the paramedic and EMT licensing systems have led to fired…
Read MoreSold a Nightmare
A four-part series by Binyamin Appelbaum, Lisa Hammersly Munn and Ted Mellnik of The Charlotte (N.C) Observer profiles Beazer Homes USA and the failure of starter-home neighborhoods in the Charlotte area. As it sold homes and arranged mortgages, the company crossed the line between selling to people who could barely afford homes and selling to…
Read MoreLaw firms profit from Empire Zone tax breaks
Michelle Breidenbach and Mike McAndrew of the The Syracuse Post-Standard found some of the state’s biggest and most politically connected law firms cashed in for millions of dollars through a state economic development program that was supposed to encourage new businesses. “At least 70 law firms cost state taxpayers more than $6 million in 2005,…
Read MoreVirginia vanity plates elicit complaints
Aaron Lee of the Lynchburg (Va.) News & Advance used FOIA to obtain complaints to the state department of motor vehicles about vanity license plates that had been issued to Virginia drivers, as well as subsequent correspondence between the DMV and the plate holders. The story reveals a host of complaints against many of the…
Read MoreBroken Trust
In an investigative series by the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune staffers Matt Doig, Tiffany Lankes and editor Chris Davis expose an epidemic of misconduct in Florida schools. In the past ten years, more than 750 Florida teachers have been punished for misconduct toward students, and at least 150 are still teaching today. It’s possible that the…
Read MoreRecognition of judicial inequities lead to man’s release
Brooks Egerton of The Dallas Morning News covered the release of Tyrone Brown “17 years after a single positive marijuana test while he was on probation led a Dallas judge to sentence him to life in prison.” Brown’s story drew national attention last year after The News ran a story on the inequity of justice…
Read MoreCampus accidents increase as inspection rates fall
Jeffery Brainard of The Chronicle of Higher Education discovered an increase in accidents on campuses as proper inspections have declined. “Serious accidents in which workers were killed or hospitalized have became more common on college campuses, according to a Chronicle analysis of federal safety-inspection records…nearly 200 significant campus incidents were cited by government officials between…
Read MoreGiuliani’s firm lobbies for Chavez’s Citgo Corp.
Henry Goldman and Jonathan D. Salant of Bloomberg report that Rudolph Giuliani’s law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, “lobbies for Citgo Petroleum Corp., a unit of the state-owned oil company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the U.S.’s chief antagonist in the Western Hemisphere.” The law firm first registered to lobby for Citgo in April…
Read MoreMotorcycle fatalities increasing in Brevard County
Jeff Schweers and Sarah Okeson of Florida Today looked at motorcycle fatalities in Brevard County and found that more than twice as many people were killed in 2006 as in 2000, and the county could top that this year. There are now twice as many bikers on Florida highways as there were five years ago.…
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